Can you talk about what changed first and foremost?

Sure.

So in March, Austin City Council voted to change the way it calculated its lobbying.

And it was a pretty controversial vote, which is what first caught our eye.

The council expanded the types of lobbying contracts that have to be disclosed.

So instead of just meetings, lobbyists now have to disclose things like texts or emails, any kind of information.

communication.

Who and what industries were doing the most lobbying at City Hall and who were they often targeting?

Just how valuable were those experiences? What'd you learn from them?

them?Yeah, I think even in Australia just qualifying for the first time, um, gives you that confidence.

'Cause I was l- I came up a little bit short a couple times in, in New York, um, against good players.

Uh, even though I felt like I was playing well, it just happened to be bad luck.

I ran into tough players.

I mean, in qualies you can lose at any time, so going through, you know, three in a row now, that, that just gives you the confidence that even if I have to play qualies in, in New York, you know, I, I can do it.

And yeah, e- even playing those three out of fives, which seemed like a super daunting task before-

Michael Zhang, always appreciate your time, friend.

Mm-hmm

... a little bit nicer in a way.

But they place a lot of the responsibility on the people themselves, saying, "Oh, ultimately, you know, it's up to you." And, and the responsibility on their side is really maybe not the same, where it's not like, "Well, we can't really claim responsibility for engineering our systems in a way to addict people." That's not language that they'll be using.

But that's trends that we're seeing very clearly now.

But when it comes to the online world, self-exclusion is one thing.

Looking at third-party options may be helpful too.

If, if you're just focusing on, "I wanna ban myself, I wanna block myself from these gambling options," the third-party ones, uh, some of them may be more t- Again, look at the funding, look at how those, uh, those companies, how those products, how those services are making their money.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

... different to what the early winning experiences were like.

And it's funny because we'd say, "Well, in theory, shouldn't anyone who keeps gambling, once they see that their losses outweigh their wins, once the losses keep escalating and increasing, shouldn't that be enough to just stop people?" But it, it's funny because e- even part of the diagnostic criteria itself is chasing losses is one of the primary symptoms of this problem, not to mention we're chasing losses in order to try to chase those wins.

W- we're trying to get to those wins that will erase- ... those losses.

And again, can this happen? Yes, it can happen.

But when you're in the midst of it, when it's gotten to a certain point, those losses are inevitable no matter how much you win back, and it just keeps spiraling.

Right.

It's not, it's not land-based gambling anymore.

I know there's a lot of cell phone games that are often targeted at children or young adults that also have gambling elements or micro transactions, right? Like, it seems like gambling is, is everywhere, you know? Is, is there any kind of like legislation or any control of this, or is it just, it just out there?

It's a very fascinating thing because what you're describing there is A pretty complete ecosystem, right? Like historically, we think about land-based casino venues, and by the way, they're still doing big numbers.

They're just not increasing as quickly now as sports betting or some of these other emerging forms of betting or trading.

Again, I say betting or trading because it depends on who you ask how they would define what, what's actually happening.

Because if they were defined as gambling, then they would be subject to taxation in the same way that traditional gambling is subject to.

Uh, but, uh, number one is still, uh, when you look at America, number one is still traditional casinos.

So we're talking about mostly slot machines, uh, they call them electronic gaming machines, or, uh, other forms of table, casino table games too, you know, roulette, blackjack, those forms of games.

I'm curious, you know, how it works, what the features are, and how do you, how are you really directly trying to work on this issue?

So I think as I think and you say that and I think about it, it is excitement, it is joy, it's confidence.

Yeah.

It's funny because it shapes like your expectation for much of your life going forward from that point, right? You start to, and I hear this a lot from people, right? You have an experience like that, which is such a common story when I'm sitting in the therapy room, engaging in gambling counseling sessions.

And it's like, I'm hearing the same story over and over and over again.

It all starts this type of way.

You can turn this into a career and into a life.

You can actually build from this when what you don't see and what you don't see until much later is it's the opposite.

What's the game plan for these people?